Chapter 1 – Ruby and Glynda
Ruby stared down at the sword-shaped nose. She flicked it, resulting in a guitar-string-like twang. "You know, it's weird that they have this."
"Fish?" asked the cat Faunus, gently tearing her own apart with a fork without having even taken one bite.
"No, just…swordfish? Of all the fish in the sea, they serve the main course as the one that I can't eat? And they serve it whole, so I can recognize it at a glance? It's just so unlikely."
"Ruby's allergic to it," said Yang, backing her sister up.
The fact that Yang remembered it was heartening. Like, she hadn't expected her sister to excommunicate her from the Rose-Xiao-Long household or something, but knowing that Yang still remembered who she was made her feel a little bit better. Her sister hadn't just given up on Ruby and thrown all that knowledge into the mental paper-shredder or something.
"We'll get you something else, sis." Yang patted her back. "Trust me, you're gonna love the food here. They serve burgers and hot dogs and pizza…oh, you can even grab cookies from one of the lunch lines!"
"That does sound nice."
It sounded way too nice. No vegetables? Only junk food that Ruby loved and cookies?
She's buttering me up. Probably something to do with all that skittishness about me leaving.
The best way to allay Yang's fears would just be to go to Miss Goodwitch directly. Once Ruby had checked in and debrief, she would be free to expand the size of Ozpin's 'in the know' circle to include her sister. Goodwitch might not be perfectly happy with that, but Ruby had earned a little something, and Yang needed to know what Ruby had been really up to if she were to get over all these sudden onset abandonment issues.
"Hey, how about you grab me one of them cookies, sis? Boke, Whines, and Pyrrha can stay with me and keep me company."
Yang nodded. "Yeah. Y-Yeah! I'll go grab you a whole tray. Just, you know, stay right here."
If it hadn't been Yang, that would've sounded like a trap. But it was Yang, so Ruby just smiled with her sparkling teeth eagerly.
"Grab me an entrée too!" Ruby called out to the disappearing blonde head of hair in the sea of other unaware students. Rotating around in her seat to face the rest of Yang's team, she placed her hands on the table.
"Should we be offended that you remembered Pyrrha's name but not ours?" asked Brick.
Ruby didn't say anything to the NPCs. She'd only sent Yang away so she wouldn't have to use magic on her sister, even if was benign. Ice spread across the surface of the table, inching down the supports onto the ground and around their seats, thus freezing them in place.
"Imma be right back."
Ruby got up, and her little babysitter coalition tried to do the same, only to find themselves affixed to their seat.
"N-No, Ruby, don't!"
"I'm actually coming back, I swear. Just wait here for a bit, and tell Yang to meet me in Goodwitch's office with those cookies, okay?"
"HELP!" shouted Wince, catching the attention of an even greater number of NPCs, but Ruby had already sped out the doors using her semblance. Once she was free of the cafeteria's stifling ceiling, she rose up a few feet, shot like a rocket towards the CCT, and clenched her gurgling stomach.
It might've been nice to actually get some rations from Amber before killing her. I would've raided her horse for snacks, but it just felt too insulting. Like, even I had some standards.
Ruby laughed aloud. She'd kill someone, but she wouldn't swipe their grub. How fucked up was that?
When Ruby stepped out of the elevator, the room had one more occupant than expect, and her presence made Ruby's heart skip a beat.
"Oh!" said Cinder Fall.
"I-It's you!" said Glynda Goodwitch, alarm in her voice.
The two of them were seated opposite one another. The headmistress sat behind her desk, a picture of headmasterly refinement, while Cinder was dressed in a Haven school uniform and had a half-unzipped backpack slung over the arm of her chair.
"No need to get up on my account," Ruby said.
That was close. If I'd stayed with Yang just a moment longer…
Damn it, assuming that Salem's orders to finish up in Vale meant pack her bags nearly cost me everything. Ruby let out a sigh. But it's over now. I'm here to protect Goodwitch, and Cinder's right here in my grasp. I'm safe. She's safe. Everyone's safe.
Well, everyone except one-third of the room's occupants.
"Ruby, is…is it time?" asked Cinder, her arm snaking into her bag.
What is she…oh, right. Salem last told me to acquire the maiden powers, then come back to Beacon and crush it all. She probably thinks I'm here to help her with that.
Ruby stepped behind Cinder. Goodwitch, despite having bumped into Ruby a few days (or was it weeks?) prior, was spellbound at her return. Ruby surmised that her mission hadn't truly been expected to be as successful as it had turned out.
Placing her hand on Cinder's head, Ruby tilted the older woman's head straight back with her enhanced strength. The snap that filled the air as flesh pressed into the back of the chair and bones broke instantly was a beautiful sound, and a shudder of tasty pleasure ran down Ruby's spine.
I spent so long among those freaks. Now, I get to enjoy being stronger than all of them and freely enacting whatever revenge I want. I finally get to be the one to hurt them.
"RUBY!" screamed Goodwitch, rising from behind her desk in alarm.
"A spy," Ruby said calmly, circling around Cinder's dead body to the arm of the chair opposite the door. "One of mine, as a matter of fact, but Salem was her ultimate boss. Couldn't take the risk, what with you being my only lifeline."
Too much must've been going on for Goodwitch to appropriately formulate a reaction, for she got stuck in a pattern of looking down to Cinder's corpse and then back to Ruby.
Ruby rolled the dead body onto the floor and took her seat. "If you need proof, she knew me. She knew my name. And I'm Salem's number one." The pride on Ruby's face was unmissable. "Pretty damning, I'd say."
"I…I taught her," Goodwitch said faintly, sitting back down. "For almost a year." She looked up at Ruby, as though that statement was a question meriting an answer. "A year!"
"Lemme guess…never brought up her past, mentioned Lionheart all the time as a get out of trouble card, frequent weekend excursions with the team – also bad eggs, and mostly dead. Oh, and here's the kicker: sudden personality change from dom to sub when she lost that eye?" Ruby pantomimed a finger gun shooting her own eye out and tilted her head back.
"I…she…Miss Fall did bring up her past, actually."
"Phony one, then. She wasn't here to be your student. She was searching for my maiden."
Goodwitch seemed to remember that Ruby's mission wasn't to root out spies at that comment, and her professional business mode returned. The spectacles that rested on her nose turned Ruby's way, and she folded her hands on her desk.
"Spring."
"Nope." Ruby shook her head and smiled, content to let her powers do the talking for her. Golden fire poured out of her eyes, then orange, and finally red.
"Three?" Goodwitch asked, leaning away from Ruby slightly.
"Yep."
"M-Miss Rose, you mission was to –"
"To get Spring, by any means necessary." Ruby idly levitated one of the papers on the headmistress' desk using air currents, then froze it instantly down to incredibly low temperatures. When it landed, it fragmented. "Which is what I did."
"Fall and Summer were on our…" Her brow creased. "I thought we told you that Amber was –"
Ruby leaned forward and matched Goodwitch's serious demeanor with her own. "You did. I had to kill Amber and the Summer maiden to kill Raven. Look, Goodwitch, I've been all alone for the past year with no one to watch my back except for Qrow and my mission. Getting the Spring powers was all I had, for the longest time. I did what needed to be done. Fuck's sake, you told me I'd have to do evil things. You drilled that into my head."
Goodwitch seemed to be uncomfortable at that reminder, but Ruby let her. She could feel guilt all she wanted; it was Ruby who had to suffer the real consequences of this arrangement.
"Forgive me for any insinuation on my part," said the professor. "I had hope that you might be able to get by without needing to…never mind. It was a foolish hope, one borne of desperation and remorse. You did what Ozpin and I asked, and we are forever in your debt. Thank you, Miss Rose. The world is much safer as a result of your actions."
"Good, great. But, ah, we do have other business to discuss."
Ruby held a hand out directly to her right and let a summer breeze reanimate Cinder's corpse. She didn't actually bring her back to life or anything crazy like that – no maiden powers could perform that miracle, or Ruby would be a far less damaged child – but she could easily prop her up with carefully positioned upwards-pointing streams of air.
Ruby gestured to the suspended body. "She wasn't the only spy."
The first thing to do was make a few calls. After seeing how close she'd cut it when Cinder visited Goodwitch with orders to 'close up shop,' Ruby was adamant about not putting all of her eggs in one basket. Ironwood and Theodore were thus promptly reached out to first thing and told that Ruby had been a deep cover spy all along, thus guaranteeing that Ruby would have someone to turn to in the event that anything else went wrong.
"Why weren't we informed of this earlier?" asked Ironwood, shooting Ruby the glare of a paranoid man who suspected he was being played.
"Ozpin and I thought it best to play this close to the chest," explained Goodwitch. "His request before laying down his own life towards Ruby's cover was that no one else be informed of Ruby's true loyalty."
"We do tend to disagree with him on many matters, James," grumbled Theodore, an old man with a twisted gray beard. He was the only headmaster Ruby hadn't seen recently, be it in downtown Vale or on Raven's portal palooza. "Whereas Glynda was far closer to him."
"It's not just that," Ruby said, interrupting the adults. "If Ozpin was as smart as he claimed to be, I think he probably knew that Salem had ways to extend her influence beyond Evernight."
"Evernight?" inquired all three academy heads at the same time.
"Her castle. I used to live there. As I was saying, this job was extremely high risk for me, but extremely high reward for Ozpin. He could get his long-lost maiden if succeeded and finally have command over all four once more, but spies reporting me could have been an issue. Ozpin's lived for a long time now, and I doubt he trusts anyone he doesn't see on a daily basis. He's used to compartmentalization of information he deems 'privileged.' Honestly, I think he only let Goodwitch in on the secret because he had to die to get my foot in the door. And it seems his instincts were proven right."
"Spies among the headmasters?" said Ironwood. "Absurd."
"Quite so," Theodore added. "Insulting, one might even say."
"Don't worry, fellas." Ruby winked. "You're both clean. But we didn't just forget to call Lionheart."
That got a reaction out of them. Both men spoke over one another in their desperate haste to restore their colleague's impugned honor. Ruby couldn't catch a word of their furious defense of the rat in lion's clothes, but she probably could guess the bulk of it. There's no way that's possible, we've known him for years, how can we even trust this girl, she's far too young, yada yada yada.
"James, Theo." Goodwitch removed her spectacles and spoke for Ruby, sparing her the task of having to interrupt the rampaging headmasters. "Just look at Mistral's numbers."
"Numbers?" growled Theodore.
"Deaths," Ruby said. "Salem was purging hunters."
The two men simultaneously grabbed scrolls and began to angrily type onto them, no doubt believing that the numbers would be the proof they needed to dispel the absurd claims of this reprobate accuser.
Ruby could pinpoint the moment in the downcast eyes of both when they realize the data didn't back up their side of the argument.
"I…surely there must be…"
Goodwitch shook her head. "There could be, but with confirmation from Miss Rose, who's spent more time among the enemy than any other, we cannot take that risk. Lionheart must be detained at once, and Haven investigated by those under our command before he can hide any evidence of wrongdoing. If we're incorrect, I'm sure Leo would understand."
"But you won't be incorrect," Ruby said.
"This feels like Salem's doing," said Ironwood, scratching at his chin. "Turning us against ourselves, sowing seeds of distrust…"
Ruby saw where this was going – ever the paranoid military man looking for a deception when there was none, he was draw the conclusion that she might be compromised. Deciding to cut this off at the neck, Ruby flashed her tri-colored eye flames.
"Before you even ask if you can trust me, know that I'm three maidens at once. No being on the planet is more powerful than me, save for Salem herself, and I have no reason to def…to come back to our side besides it being what I've always intended. I could probably snap my fingers and bring in a tidal wave crashing over Vale, or burn down all of Mistral with a raging forest fire."
Both men paused at that.
"Three maidens?" asked Ironwood, pondering her words that were backed by the eye flames. "But I saw Fria just yesterday…"
Theodore realized it sooner. "You killed…dear Gods, you murdered all of them."
Ruby nodded. There was no denying who she was and what she'd become. Summer was Theodore's maiden, according to the vaults and the schools under which they were stored, so he was probably upset that Ruby had slain his maiden.
"It had to be done," said Ruby. "There was no other way to best Raven in combat."
Theodore's face flashed with rage, and he angrily pressed the button on his end to end the call. Ruby turned to Goodwitch, waiting for an explanation, but the woman's focus was on Ironwood.
"Glynda, you ordered it?"
"I told Miss Rose that no intelligence or individual's life would be worth more than the maidens. So yes, I ordered it."
She hadn't specifically, but Ruby could recognize that Goodwitch was shielding her from Ironwood's blame. A kind thing to do, even if Ruby didn't care much for the rage of a headmaster some thousands of miles away.
I did my job. Why are they so upset? It's not like I killed the maidens for fun. If I hadn't killed Lìxià, I wouldn't have been able to kill Raven, and if Raven kept the powers, it could've doomed the entire world. I did a good thing.
Wait…oh shit, no, I actually didn't kill her. I let her live cuz I used Grubbie to – ah, but it's too late to explain it all again.
It wasn't, but Ruby was kinda tired, so she just let it slide. She had killed Amber and Raven, so two vs. three maidens made little to no difference in the grand scheme of things.
Ironwood looked like he'd just taken a bullet. "You…"
Goodwitch nodded.
"By the shattered moon, Glynda," Ironwood looked away, slightly offended. "I know they were having disagreements, but she was still his daughter."
Goodwitch rapped her knuckles against the door. The fat professor, the one Ruby had screwed around with a little bit in his Dumb Studies class, stood at the door's right side as a guard, and the skinny green-haired beanpole dude that Goodwitch had called to her side joined him at the door's left.
True to her word, Ruby intended to return to Yang after abandoning her and her team, but the huntresses actually beat Ruby to it and went to their teachers. Around the time Goodwitch and Ruby had finished their calls with the police, the hunters, and the military and had moved on to the civilian government, a frantic tubby man had barged into the CCT tower informing them that a criminal had been spotted in Beacon. Upon seeing Ruby (who he still thought was just a touring younger sibling), the professor immediately rushed to reassure her that she would be safe from whatever villain had infiltrated the campus.
From there, Goodwitch had taken charge. The professor was told to return to Yang's team and inform them that the situation was under control, and several of the surviving hunter teams, the ones Ruby hadn't gotten to on her list of people to kill, were called in to Beacon to serve as a standing guard for the school until its safety could be guaranteed. Tyrian, Watts, the hound, and some of Cinder's agents (Mercury and Neo) were still out there, and the Spring/Fall/Summer maiden needed to be protected. One of the teams, Goodwitch, and the green-bean guy were escorting Ruby everywhere for the time being.
"I could set up private quarters for you," said Goodwitch. "There's no need to share accommodations with others."
"I'd rather be with Yang," Ruby explained simply.
Goodwitch nodded. From her perspective, any place on Beacon was probably equally secure, and having Ruby bunking with a team of huntresses was just another line of security. It wasn't necessary, as Tyrian was in Shade, Watts was useless, and there was absolutely no way the hound would be able to pass as a human and sneak in. Cinder had been in charge of the Beacon branch of Evernight's forces, so with her gone, there was no threat. Still, Ruby allowed the extra defense, not willing to jeopardize everything because of pride or ego. She'd put in her time; now, she got to let someone else pick up the slack and handle the fighting.
The door opened, and a very worried looking Yang answered it. "Ma'am, we – Ruby!"
Ruby waved her hand. "Heyo."
"Ru – Profe – ma'am, she –"
"I know, Miss Xiao-Long. May I come in?"
Yang stepped back, revealing that all three of the girls on her team were equally perturbed and seated on their beds. Ruby knew it was a school day (she'd killed Amber on Saturday night since Cinder needed time off to join her, and flying out to Raven was the next day, so today was a Monday), but she had a feeling that none of them were getting any homework done.
They came in, and Goodwitch stood at the center of the room so that she could look at all the kids at once while speaking. Ruby stretched out her arms above her head and hopped onto the only empty bunk, likely Yang's. "Do you mind if I lie down? I've been on my feet all weekend."
No one replied, though they all made sure to put on an uncomfortable look. Ruby bore it without a care in the world.
"Team Exuberance, I am aware that this must be a…confusing situation for you all," Goodwitch said calmly.
Exuberance…I guess you can't find a color starting with Y or X, so they just dropped that like a hot potato. Kind nice ring to it, though. Maybe it can be Exuberancier, meaning even more exuberant?
Yang threw up her hands in the air. "Like fuck it is!"
"Miss Xiao-Long," chided Goodwitch.
"Yeah, I'll say fuck as much as I want, because what the fuck is fucking going on?" replied Yang. "Ruby's back, and we're not…shouldn't something more be happening? Just…what is happening?"
Goodwitch ran her hand through her hair and sighed. "It will be a complicated explanation. There may be parts you don't understand as well as parts I cannot tell you without compromising the kingdoms' security, but I will inform you of what I can."
"We'll take anything we can get," said the cat Faunus, whose ears were flattened against her head. Ruby couldn't help but notice that she and Yang shared a nightstand, with both of their things mixed together.
Wonder if this one's gonna stick around…it'd be weird to have a sister-in-law named Bork…
Goodwitch cleared her throat, and the entire room leaned in. She could tell that the two teachers outside, who were equally out of the loop as to Ruby's true identity, were equally as curious, probably listening in through the crack of the door.
"Ruby Rose has just come out of a deep undercover assignment stopping several criminals who sought to endanger the kingdoms. The deaths you were made to witness were part of her cover."
That made jaws drop, and Ruby could tell why. From her own perspective, this was something she knew to be true with every fiber of her being, but all they had seen was a poor little young girl lash out in rage and hurt several innocent people around her. To learn that it had all been a big old ruse, that none of the bad things they thought were true had actually happened…
It must seem too good to be true. Like a dream, where all of the bad things ever are revealed to have been fake, and it was all just a big old prank. This kind of things happens in movies and books, so people assume it has to be fictional when they come face to face with it.
Yang turned to Ruby. "I-Is…"
Ruby smiled and gave her a thumbs up from her lying-down position.
"So…Ozpin isn't dead?" asked Winky.
"That's impossible," said Pyrrha. "We…We watched you behead him."
They all turned to Ruby for an explanation, but she just dug her back into the sheets on Yang's bed.
"The headmaster possesses a rare semblance, one that aided in…falsifying his death," Goodwitch explained. "Rest assured, while he too is in hiding at the moment, he is unharmed."
"And Qrow?" Yang asked, a crack in her voice.
"I'm right here," cawed the bird in the windowsill. Ruby pointed a playful finger gun at it and tilted her hand back. It made an overexaggerated fake dying motion and fell down onto its back, but none of the girls seemed to appreciate the levity that its bad acting provided.
"Qrow was…" Goodwitch paused, pursing her lips. "…Qrow was killed in a tragic accident, one that Miss Rose cannot be held at fault for. Ozpin and I merely…" Another pause, but this time it was much longer.
You took advantage of his death to scoop me up and recruit my sorry ass, Ruby thought. You retconned me into a monster and then sent me out to make me into one.
"I know no way to phrase this without it sounding horrific, but we utilized his death to forge Miss Rose's cover as an up-and-coming rogue huntress. Your uncle was a huntsman, Miss Xiao-Long. I can only hope he would have approved in a plan that saved lives."
They weren't buying it; that much was obvious. They'd had an entire year to accept what they'd seen, and Yang had probably spent much of that time rewriting her thoughts on Ruby to come to terms with the fact that her sister was a brutal murderer. Which, you know, wasn't exactly untrue, but she hadn't started as one.
"Miss Goodwitch, this seems slightly farfetched," said Wedge, taking a deferential tone to avoid making her statement seem like a challenge. She clearly just wanted a better explanation.
"I am aware. This operation was thought up over the course of a single night – less than that, in fact, merely a few hours – by Headmaster Ozpin and myself. Much of it was merely opportunistic, and I'll admit freely that we could not adequately cover every angle."
Ruby snorted at that. They'd barely covered any angles at all.
Just pointed me in Salem's general direction, slapped my ass, said giddyap.
"Miss Rose consented to be a part of this operation and has spent the past year as a field agent, ostensibly working for a terrorist organization but in actuality bringing them down from within," Goodwitch explained, opting to move on from trying to convince them and instead give more details to make the plan become more real in the girls' eyes. "If you have heard any news about her committing crimes or doing various misdeeds, know that she was only doing it for the greater good of humanity as a whole."
"And she's done?" Yang asked. "The bad guys are all dead?"
"They are weakened enough according to the parameters Ozpin established that she returned to Vale," said Goodwitch. "Ruby has deprived them of a major advantage, and the headmaster and I are now in the process of actively using the intelligence she has uncovered to mop up the remaining few."
"So she won't be leaving again?" Yang said, her voice desperate. "She's here to stay?"
"She is," said Goodwitch. "And she's requested to remain with your team until such time as the lingering remnants of the organization she infiltrated are destroyed and her safety has been guaranteed."
Yang scooped Ruby up into a great big hug, which Ruby did nothing to stop. The instincts she'd developed over the past year told her not to let anyone get remotely close enough to her, but the instincts she'd developed over her entire life reminded her that Yang was Yang and would never hurt her. This was no threat.
She still kept her aura up, though.
"Oh, Ruby! Oh, oh, my Ruby!" Yang started to cry. "You're back! I'm so happy!"
Ruby let her big sister pull her in even tighter and press kisses into her hair.
"And you're not…you didn't…you aren't a killer!"
Yang was snuggled up against Ruby and didn't see her roll her eyes ever so slightly at that.
Author's Notes
This is Disc A of the alternate endings. Disc B is titled Remnant's Greatest Villain (Origin Story was the Remnant's Greatest Ruby ending). It will post on Wednesdays, and Remnant's Greatest Villain will post Sundays.
I thought of this story (20K words) on a Friday morning, and I finished writing it on the following Sunday night the same day Chapter 6 of Origin Story was posted. It was crunched out over a single weekend, so please appreciate what I do for you.
Basically, I just wanted to write a happy ending (not as fanservice originally, thought it certainly turned into that, but because I wanted to explore the idea of Ruby struggling to return to society and let go of what happened to her). This one doesn't end in major death or destruction. It is a true happy ending.
Happy rats, and don't do crime!